HOT TOPICS:

Starz takes a sword to all those pirate stereotypes

By Jacqueline CutlerZap2it

Posted:
01/23/2014 12:01:00 AM CST

Updated:
01/23/2014 10:13:17 AM CST

"Black Sails," Starz's sweeping series about pirates, initially captivates because it's stunning. A hotter group of aquatic baddies never roamed the blue waters of the West Indies or cavorted on the white sands of New Providence.

The series is so promising that the station renewed it even before the pilot's premiere at 8 p.m. Saturday. Watching the first four episodes about tough men and the even tougher women they meet in 1715 Nassau, it becomes clear "Black Sails," blessedly, lacks pirate cliches. There's not an "arrrr" or "yo-ho-ho" to be heard.

"At the first meeting we had," says co-creator and showrunner Jon Steinberg, "we said, 'No patches. No peg legs. No parrots. No hooks.' We overcorrected early on, deliberately, in terms of trying to strip out anything that felt expected from the pirates movies that had come before."

This leaves the pirates more fully drawn than swashbucklers looking for their next bottle of rum. The ships, crowded with gritty, unhinged pirates, take on the feel of mental institutions at sea. The series has the feel of one that was carefully developed, not slapped on the air to ride a trend.

There's an explosive beginning, and a ship is taken by force. These are, after all, pirates. There's a captain determined to get hold of a large ship carrying what would be today about $500 million.

Capt. Flint (Toby Stephens) is an educated man, fond of Roman emperor/philosopher Marcus Aurelius, and not always successful at keeping his pathological violence at bay.

Advertisement

"He is an enigmatic figure, and he is deliberately written like that, so I don't want to reveal too much about it," Stephens says. "He is driven by trying to do good by his men, and he is someone who can guide them and lead them.

"They are too driven by base motives," Stephens continues. "They want to earn money to drink and spend on whores. Their goals are very short-term, whereas he is trying to create a place where they can be safe. So, Nassau becomes someplace self-sufficient, and they no longer need to exist by piracy. And that is what really drives him."

The whores Stephens refers to are shown plying their trade, and the show has plenty of sex and violence, though it's not gratuitous considering the subjects. One of the main female characters is Max (Jessica Parker Kennedy), a prostitute in love with Eleanor Guthrie. Guthrie (Hannah New) has the earmarks of a frontierswoman settling the West. She's not afraid of men.

"It was a wonderful challenge to get offered a role as a young actress to play someone so in control," New says. "She has vulnerable aspects, but she has inner strength and this hardcore aspect."

The daughter of the richest black marketer in the Bahamas, Guthrie oversees his business interests. She's the fence, a critical part of the pirate economy. Pirates stole, then needed to trade those goods.

Fierce, determined and sexual, Guthrie's lovers are Flint's rival, Capt. Charles Vane (Zach McGowan), and Max. Guthrie is, New says, "a young woman who is completely outside the bounds of normal gender definitions of that time. And she is living in a very special, unique time in history."

Guthrie and Flint want New Providence to be more than a way station for pirates.

"Ultimately, she is a visionary, and (she) has this idea that the place can be a civilized, functioning country in its own right and a republic of people who can work hard," New says. "She has taken it upon herself to make it work and make this place become a civilized port. Essentially, she is a capitalist out for creating an economy that sustains."

Flint's contribution to that economy is to settle down there with his share once he and his men take down the ship carrying all that money. Like Guthrie, Flint realizes the potential of New Providence.

"It is a very precarious world they live in," Stephens says. "Always on the horizon are England and Spain, and they will take it over. It is about surviving, and he doesn't want to survive day by day. He wants some kind of security. The problem is the way he tries to do that is not always moral. He lives in an amoral world. He has to get his way by amoral means."

"Black Sails" reminds us there was a basic democracy on pirate ships, with the men electing the captain and quartermaster and everyone receiving shares of the booty.

"It is a new historical perspective on piracy, and more than anything it stands its grounds as a political drama," New says. "And it is just a fascinating adventure."

In the first four episodes, alliances are forged, men are killed, and loves are revealed.

The characters quickly become so much more than cartoons with eye patches.